Context
by ObliviousTrace
Summary: Things need time to heal, but that does not mean that they are destroyed. With some people, you need to take things into context. DHr


**Context**

It was all a matter of semantics, he would tell me.

He would wrap his arms around me and grin down at the top of my head. I tried no to let his cynicism bother me too much. You had to take him with a grain of salt. After all, it was one of the things I loved about him.

I remember the first morning at breakfast, after we entered the Great Hall together and he kissed me before going to his table. Harry and Ron stared at me as I casually cut my sausage and poured my juice.

Surprisingly enough, the first words they said were not "why" or "when". Harry just looked at me levelly and told me that if Draco hurt me, he and Ron reserved the right to beat him up.

Ron nodded sagely. I wanted to fling my arms around them both in gratitude. Instead, I just smiled and passed them the toast.

OOOOOOOOOO

You could easily tell which ones of us had fought in the war. We might have looked young, few of us over twenty, but our eyes were old, full of things seen and things lost. It still hurt to look around the school and see the spaces that should have been filled. When I said this to Draco, he told me to look at the spaces at the tables that were filled by members of other houses. I saw Ron talking to Blaise and Hufflepuffs with Ravenclaws and Dean flirting with Pansy. I smiled up at him.

"You make a good point."

"I always do." He squeezed me tighter and we watched people move around the hall, talking and laughing. There was sorrow as well, oh yes, the sad undertone hung in the air. But it was a sweet sadness.

"Well, you know what they say." I turned around to face him and twined my arms around his neck. "Love conquers all."

He smirked and his arms snaked around my waist. "Actually, Vergil wrote those words about Dido, a queen who killed herself because her love left her. Taken in context, love isn't a powerful, wonderful force, but actually a malevolent being bent on destruction."

I rolled my eyes and kissed him.

OOOOOOOOO

Some people wondered why we all stayed at Hogwarts, after the battle, after the school year was over, after a lot of us had already graduated. They didn't understand. We all needed to be here, even the little first years. We might not be in classes, but there was a comfort in staying in the school that was our home. Parents wanted us back, but each and every student refused.

"Just a little while longer," we all would say.

Slowly, scars healed on the outside. We spent our days doing whatever, full of sunshine and laughter and reflection and reminiscing.

At nights, hardly anyone slept alone. The memories were too real and oppressing in the dark to deal with without someone else. I slept in the arms of Harry and Ron, soothing their nightmares. Or I prowled the lakeside with him.

Draco found his comfort in my arms or in no ones. I sometimes thought that in a way, he felt more at peace when he was alone under the stars, one with the night. In some ways, he had lost the most. Both of his parents were dead, and they weren't even talking to him at the end, after he joined us. It must have been hard, to renounce a whole way of life, a way of thinking, a belief structure, but he just shrugged it off.

"Falling in love with you," he said, trailing his fingertips on my cheek, "Put everything in a different context."

OOOOOOOOOOO

Then one day it just stopped, and everyone knew it was time to return to the real world. It was like we all woke up from a slow, beautiful dream, and stood around blinking in the sun. Trunks were packed and people walked the halls in farewell, some for the last time, some to return next year.

I remember standing with the depleted number of my class at the train station, waiting for the Hogwarts express, late for the first time. No one was crying. There was simply an amicable silence, and understanding that had been reached between all of us. My right hand was latched onto Harry and my left to Ron, and my eyes looked back to the castle and the path leading to it.

I searched for him, because I knew he wasn't coming with us. He was living with Snape now, and Snape didn't leave Hogwarts for a little while longer. I was hoping he would come say goodbye, but if he didn't I would have understood. He wasn't the goodbye type.

The red train pulled up and we began to load for the last time. I felt a pair of arms encircle my waist, pulling me back. I closed my eyes and smiled as I was twirled around and a pair of lips massaged mine.

"Thought I'd forget you?" He murmured.

"I was wondering…" I pulled back to look into his eyes. I could read them, and I knew that he loved me. I didn't need him to tell me so, and he didn't need me to tell him. We too had reached an understanding. I climbed up the steps, satisfied.

"Write to me."

He nodded and stepped back as the train began to pull forward, his arms nonchalantly crossed over his chest. I was secretly hoping that he would run after the train like I had seen people do in romantic movies, but he didn't. He just gazed after me, smirking.

I wasn't disappointed. With him, I had to take everything in context.


End file.
